This invention relates generally to manufacturing systems, and more particularly to a computerized system for generating, storing, retrieving and distributing aids utilized in the manufacture of products.
The step-by-step instructions used by manufacturing personnel to fabricate, assemble and test products being produced are generally referred to as manufacturing aids. A typical manufacturing aid generally consists of an orientation image of the product being produced, exploded or detailed views of the particular area of interest, and alphanumeric text instructions describing the actions to be performed. The information contained on any particular manufacturing aid may be obtained by being copied from engineering drawings, process specifications or from assembled products. To reduce complexity to the manufacturing personnel, many manufacturing aid drawings are created to describe the entire process from start to finish in building and inspecting the product.
Problems associated with existing manufacturing aids fall into three categories; namely, concerning the creation of the manufacturing aid, control of the information contained on the manufacturing aid, and timely distribution of the aid to manufacturing personnel.
Currently, images contained on the manufacturing aid are either portions of the engineering drawing redrawn for clarity and simplicity or photographs of the actual product. These images are then assembled onto a form to which alphanumeric instructions are added and photographs made of the composite prior to laminating the photograph for distribution to the manufacturing work stations. The creation plus the checks and balances associated with this process takes significant amounts of effort with its associated costs.
With respect to the control of information contained in the manufacturing aid, a problem develops when the old information at the manufacturing work station is not removed as new updated information arrives. Outdated and obsolete information can unfortunately be used to perform and test in manufacturing because current information is unavailable or not easily available. Further, problems associated with information control develop when the old information at the manufacturing work stations is not removed as new updated information arrives. An additional problem concerns the retrieval of the unique information needed to perform a task. For example, a question can arise concerning whether or not the information contained in the manufacturing aid matches the drawing number, revision level, and status of the product for which it will be utilized.
Timely distribution of the manufacturing aid to the production personnel is another area in which problems arise with respect to the manufacturing aids. To prevent the equipment from being built utilizing erroneous information contained in existing manufacturing aids, it is important to reduce the time required to incorporate updates to the existing manufacturing aids. It is not uncommon for updated manufacturing aids to take as long as a week to arrive at the manufacturing work stations once the aids has been released for use. This time period can be even longer when the manufacturing function is remotely located. Reference documents, such as process specifications and manuals relating to standard shop practice, are usually not easily available in the shop floor. Thus, there is no mechanism in place to determine the currency of the information they contain.